The FCC can do more to stop annoying, and illegal, robocalls

Nearly a year ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved rules to allow phone companies to block specific categories of clearly illegally spoofed calls. However, no visible progress has been made to actually reduce the volume of unwanted calls. A lack of law enforcement recourse around illegal robocalls has prompted consumer advocates to ask the FCC to do more.

In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission received 4.5 million illegal robocall complaints, two-and-a-half times more than in 2014. This means millions of scammers found ways to evade the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) call-blocking order that was issued just last year and intended to cut back on four types of categories of scam calls. While the order was a good start, it clearly doesn’t do enough to protect consumers from these pesky interruptions.

Advocates are now calling on the FCC to take further action to stop scam calls, like requiring phone companies to implement caller ID authentication technology, requiring that phone companies offer all of their customers optional call-filtering tools, and charging domestic phone service providers fees for call traffic associated with illegal robocalls.